This dispensa was an eyeopener for me! I discovered many small changes that have occurred over the year and how lax I had become! The clients were still gracious and thankful but some of our basic items had changed. And the cost had crept up in spite of what we thought we were doing.

Some of you know that we lost Gordon, our wonderful soup/stew maker in early July and we decided that that was the end to his run. It seems some of our younger clients were not fans of the stew.

Our basic despensa was costing more than we realized and we were getting less!! Now back to the drawing board!!

Milk was dropped as the people drinking it wanted a more special kind of milk which is more costly, detergeant is increasing as are the rice, beans and cookies.

Also the youth volunteers were less than available than in the past and Carmita was doing it without help sometimes!!

Here are the changes I am suggesting!

Delete milk of any kind, cancel soup/stew, and the basic dispensa will have 8 instead of 9 items every month: our volunteers will come the day before to fill the bags to facilitates preparation; extras will be as snowbirds go home and donate.

Perhaps the cost to the family should go to 25 pesos while the yearly donation increases to 90 Canadian dollars. Still thinking on this!

I will surely let you know before our new year begins in November!